A City Guide to Bucharest, Romania

March 15, 2016

If you’re a first time visitor to the quirky city of Bucharest, you will find everything you need to know about the city in this very quick city guide. Let’s do a quick low-down on the “what, where and how” in the Romanian capital.

Bucharest has grown increasingly popular over the past few years. These days, it seems to me like everyone and their grandmother are headed down to the Romanian capital. And I can’t say I blame them – I found Bucharest to be a young, vibrant and energetic city. Combine that with the affordable prices (especially compared to the prices of Western Europe!), and you can suddenly experience luxury on the cheap. With tourism booming, it’s about time I introduce you to my very quick city guide. This is meant as a helper to all those of you who are headed to Bucharest for the very first time. Many travellers visit Bucharest just for a night or two before they head off to the more famous Transylvania, but I highly encourage you to stay for longer. There’s simply too much to see for just a weekend!

Before going to Bucharest, I must admit that I felt completely and utterly lost. I knew absolutely nothing about Bucharest. Or even Romania, for that sake. To me, Romania simply appeared as a big, unexplainable space on the European map. My only associations were fragments like “Dracula”, “communism” and “Casa Poporului”. Sadly enough. It quickly turned out that Bucharest is so much more than just fragments of communist history – hence why I created this quick city guide for you.

One of the many things I see people complain about when it comes to Bucharest, is the obvious decay that the city is portraying to all its visitors. However, this should not be a problem. Rather, I find that my colleagues over at Urban Travel Blog describes the decaying city perfectly: “In Bucharest urban decay is worn as a badge of honour, a place where even the most visited part of the city, the Old Town, is a collection of pubs, restaurants and shops wedged awkwardly into the ground floors of crumbling, often derelict buildings unlikely to be renovated any time soon.”

Bucharest might be incredibly shabby, but it definitely hasn’t lost its charm. Furthermore, Bucharest – with its affordable prices and great selection of bars – is now a runner-up as one of the undisputable party capitals of Europe, according to the Culture Trip.

In other words, Bucharest might just be the city for you whether you are looking for affordable luxury, a wild night out or a day exploring the many museums. It’s indeed a strange and quirky city, but it’s pretty hard not to like it!

Where? Bucharest, Romania. The country share borders with Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary (in other words – it is located in Southeast Europe).

Closest airport? Aeroportul International Henri Coanda Bucuresti (wow! Try saying that after a few glasses of wine!), the city can be reached within 25 minutes by taxi.

Flight time? 3.5 hours from Glasgow, app. the same from London Heathrow.

Time Zone? + 2 hours (London time, +1 hour Scandi time)

Currency? Romanian Leu.

What to see? Stavropoleos Monastery, the Village Museum, the Parliament, the Old Town. If you are there for a longer period of time, a day trip to Dracula’s castle is highly recommended.

Where to eat? Hanul Hanuc (in the Old Town) is famous for its traditional Romanian cuisine (which is highly inspired by the Ottoman culture). La Mamma (in the Old Town) serves cheap and wonderful food that will keep you both happy and fed for days.

Where to stay? No Doubt – Umbrella Hostel. This is the best hostel I have ever stayed at (and I swear, no one is paying me to say this, I simply just love it). The comfiest bunk beds ever, the softest pillow I have ever rested my head on (at a hostel, that is), and free coffee all day and all night. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the cutest Englishman EVER was sleeping in the bunk bed next to me. Ah, the life of a single girl, eh?

How long did you stay in Bucharest? Also you could visit many more other places: Palace of Parliament (or the House of People), Romanian Athenaeum, Dimitri Gusti National Village, Grigore Antipa National Museum, Cotroceni Palace, CEC Palace (we have lots of Palaces as you can see :)) )etc.
Also you have a little typo: Hanul Hanuc is actually Hanul Manuc or “Hanul lui Manuc”. We hope you’ll visit us again :)

Hello! I was unfortunately only in Bucharest for a few days, but hopefully I’ll have the chance to return again sometime soon – there’s still SO MUCH to discover in Romania! Thank you for all your suggestions – I’ll definitely bookmark them for my next visit xx

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